Sure the latest initiatives from the Teslas, Apples and Googles of the industry tend to dominate the tech news space — and with good reason. Still, the tech titans aren’t the only ones bringing innovation to the sector.
In an effort to highlight up-and-coming startups, Built In has launched The Future 5 across eight major U.S. tech hubs. Each quarter, we will feature five tech startups, nonprofits or entrepreneurs in each of these hubs who just might be working on the next big thing. You can check out last quarter’s Seattle round-up here.
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Many facets of our lives have changed over the past few years. An abrupt collective shift to digital platforms altered how we work, play and learn. However, while video conferences and online chatrooms may be effective tools for working adults, virtual education was a more turbulent transition for young learners.
Over the course of the pandemic, 9-year-old students scored lower in reading and math, declining to a level that hadn’t been seen for two decades, according to test results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. This, coupled with existing systemic issues like inequity and funding decreases in U.S. education systems, ignited the need for modern education solutions.
Adaptively Education is one such solution. The startup wants to help students regain lost ground with its personalized learning tech. Accelerated by the pandemic, Adaptively was founded in 2020 and launched its platform the following year.
Combining virtual learning solutions with live instruction, Adaptively’s video classroom solution provides students with real-time access to teachers who guide them through the company’s proprietary curriculum. Its platform focuses on reading and math and tailors to each student’s unique learning style. Rather than assessing progress based solely on correct answers, Adaptively tracks how a student arrived at their answer and adjusts their education journey from there.
We will look to build a truly adaptive learning system that learns how to best promote the mastery of concepts to students using our platform based on how they learn.”
Each of Adaptively’s co-founders has a personal tie to the solution. Hao Lam, the company’s executive chairman, experienced how education can change someone’s life. As an immigrant leaving war-torn Vietnam, Lam dedicated himself to the challenge of learning English. Through perseverance, his hard work paid off when he eventually graduated from college, according to CTO and co-founder Patrick Yee.
For Yee, his attachment to education is rooted in how one attentive grade school teacher changed the course of his schooling trajectory.
“I was painfully shy as a kid and I thoroughly disliked speaking in front of the class, or really speaking up in class at all. This manifested itself in my not wanting to read passages from books in front of the class in the third grade, even when I knew all of the words and could read them in my head just fine,” Yee told Built In via email. “Thus, due mostly to my own shyness, I did very poorly in reading in the third grade and was placed in a class for kids that had trouble reading in fourth grade.”
Yee’s fourth-grade teacher took the time to understand each of her students’ needs, according to Yee. After realizing that Yee thoroughly comprehended the class material, she guided him into the honors reading program the following year. From that point on, Yee was an honors student throughout high school and up to his college admission.
Adaptively works to improve the teaching experience to ensure every student can have opportunities like this. The company wants to give educators the chance to make lasting impacts on their pupils and wants to help millions of students access effective learning that enables them to prosper.
The platform currently supports a network of 65 educators across four states, mainly in Washington and California. As it grows within these markets in the coming months, Adaptively also plans to double its user base in Q1 next year.
Part of the company’s growth also includes adding new platform features, like an incentive system for positive behavior and other gamified aspects.
“In the short term, we are looking to build out our analytics capabilities to begin measuring student learning in relation to their peers on a national level, as well as measuring our curriculum and its absorption by our students,” Yee said. “Later, we will look to build a truly adaptive learning system that learns how to best promote the mastery of concepts to students using our platform based on how they learn.”
